Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Meat Lover Pizza Cups




I miss pizza (and spaghetti) while avoiding carbs. You will see this come out in later food blog posts of recipes I have tried.

I thought this might help curb my pizza craving.

I thought I got thin ham, but even thinner ham probably would have crisped up more.

I do not know what kind of muffin pan they were using, but I had a very hard time fitting all the ingredients into the cups. It was important to me to make sure the pan was not left with a residue of dropped toppings from constructing them. I had to do some clean up before baking.

The recipe states you can add additional toppings, and I would have loved to add bell peppers, mushrooms, or onions, but I had no room. The cups were already overflowing. Note: I did mess up the order of filling the cups and put bacon crumbles under the cheese instead of on top of the pepperoni, so that could have contributed to this problem. Pay attention to the layering ordering when making them.

These can be a bit messy to eat.

I did not find sugar free pizza sauce at the grocery store, so I just bought the regular kind. I am sure you could find it if you go to a superstore. I go to a more local, smaller grocery store.

Also, I got turkey pepperoni because I like it.

Check out the recipe here.  Only one more recipe until I start typing out the recipes here instead of using internet ones!

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Bacon Avocado Bombs



This tastes just as delicious as it sounds. It has three of my favorite ingredients.

It is super easy to make.

The prep time is actually fairly accurate on this one, maybe even less than it says.

The trickiest part is getting the avocados ripe, but that always seems to be the issue with them.

Also, your oven may be different than mine, but it took a lot longer than 5 minutes on each side to get the bacon cooked. Plan for a lot of extra time on this step.

10/10 highly recommend

Check out the recipe here, which even has an instruction video on the right hand side of the page.

Monday, July 29, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Spinach Stuffed Chicken




This is yet another variation of what to stuff a chicken with, and it is a great way to get some more greens in your diet.

There were two tricky parts to this recipe.

First, it is much easier to cut chicken when it is still a bit frozen than when it is defrosted. I confirmed this later in the week with another recipe. Jared was home when I was cooking this one and helped cut the chicken pockets to stuff.

Second, it was hard to keep the seasoning on the chicken. You first put the oil on the chicken, then the seasoning, and the seasoning had a hard time staying on the chicken.

Also, paprika is not my favorite seasoning, and I would probably  do a different seasoning mix next time with more of a kick. However, if you like paprika, keep it just the same.

Check out the recipe here. (It is all the way at the bottom of the page.)

As always, let me know what you think when you try this out.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Cheesy Bacon Chicken



Well, if you look at this pan of chicken and think that it looks like a load of cheese in a pan, you would be correct.

If you love cheese, bacon, and then cream cheese on top of all that, then this is the recipe for you.

It is easy to prepare and quick.

The thing that takes the longest is cooking the bacon, letting it cool, and then chopping it.

I would cook it again, and it worked well for lunch leftovers the next day. It is also keto friendly.

10/10 would recommend

Friday, July 26, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Egg Roll in a Bowl

Egg rolls are delicious (except those frozen ones that taste only like mushed up vegetables when cooked). I had to try this recipe because I like Chinese food.

It did not taste exactly the way I imagined, but it was pretty close and quite delicious. This is a recipe we will definitely be using again.

It also makes a good amount, so you will probably have leftovers.

Jared said he wished it had more vegetables, but I put in the 14 ounces in the recipe and thought its vegetable ratio was fine.

I could not imagine what this would taste like with beef as the recipe states you can use. Pork is not my favorite, so I opted for ground Italian sausage that provided more flavor and masks the pork taste.

Spicy Italian sausage would have been great, but the selection at the grocery store was limited with only mild sausage.

Jared said he would have liked spicy mustard with his which he puts on his egg rolls normally. We found a recipe to make our own here since we were out that only uses 4 ingredients that we actually had.

I like to use duck sauce or sweet and sour sauce on my egg rolls, so I used some sweet chili sauce that we had. It was a great addition.

Here is the recipe for this bowl of deliciousness. This is a recipe that needs to be put on the meal rotation.

10/10 I highly recommend.

Thursday, July 25, 2019

New Rule: Everyone Takes Out the Trash

https://columbiasc.citymomsblog.com/new-rule-everyone-takes-out-the-trash/?fbclid=IwAR1NAIgnfTrBWr06v0VeuVkkWZf7B0RDPfjYavaRHAZX3fxxV4L4qlEPM08

Low Carb Chronicles: P.F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps


This is a knock-off recipe for P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps, which I love. 

There is a weird ingredient in here - hoisin sauce, which you may have a hard time finding in the grocery store. I did the first time I looked for it.  Oddly enough, I already had this ingredient from a previous recipe. Check the international aisle for it. It is probably near the Asian food. You might also use it in a Middle Eastern dish sometime; that is when I first found it.

I really liked this. I would add more sriracha if you like things spicy because ours were not hot enough for our liking.

It calls for the water chestnuts to be sliced, but I would probably cut them smaller next time, even dice them.

They are not as good as the authentic wraps, so do not think they will be exactly as amazing. However, if you like the originals, you should give these a try. 

Also, we left the rice out. 

Here's the recipe. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Meaty Sweet Peppers

I had some sweet peppers left over from a recipe and was on a mission to make some mini sweet pepper poppers (kind of like jalapeno poppers).

The internet is full of these recipes, but they mostly include rice, which we are avoiding, or beans.

The recipe said that overflow was fine, and we did have a lot of overflow. The peppers were a little buried.

I made the recipe 4 times what it called for to use a full pound of meat and make it more of a main dish than side dish or appetizer. There was also another small pan of poppers (not pictured) that did not fit in the big pan.

They were great, and they would make a good appetizer as well. There will not be a lot of popping in your mouth going on because you will need a fork.

These poppers were a great way to get my nephew to eat some colorful vegetables.

Check out the recipe here.

Monday, July 22, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Keto Stuffed Mushrooms

These mushrooms are delicious. We did not have any left over after dinner.

This is a perfect appetizer or side dish to add some yummy cheesiness in your life.

My only advice here is to use bigger mushrooms than I did. I had a hard time stuffing mine and then I had a lot of stuffing left over that I just baked and we ate anyway.  Had I had an extra bell or sweet pepper hanging around in the fridge, I would have stuffed it with the extra stuffing.

10/10 I recommend.

It is full of flavor and still low carb.

Check out the recipe here.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Enchilada Meatballs

I saw this recipe and wanted it because I like beef, and meatballs are nice.

It tasted exactly how I imagined it would. It was like an enchilada with only the insides.

It made me want meatballs with spaghetti sauce, but that sauce would have wayyyy too much sugar for us.

It was good. If you like Mexican food, I highly recommend it.

I did not miss the outside of the enchiladas.

If you want a recipe to make your own taco seasoning, here you go. We added fresh veggies on the side.
Check out these enchilada meatballs here.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Beef Hominy Chili


I admit that the hominy intrigued me, but the real reason I chose this recipe was because we had some beef chuck roast in the freezer that needed to be eaten. So I searched for "beef chuck roast recipes" and landed on this one.

It is made in a crock pot, so it frees up your evening. However, do not let that prep time fool you. It took me about an hour to get it ready in the morning. Granted, the meat was frozen so that took some extra time, but still - it was not 10 minutes prep time.

My nephew loved this chili and ate multiple servings. He said it was his favorite thing I had cooked for him.

It was pretty good.

Jared's response was, "Corn on corn?"

This was the first time I remember ever eating hominy, which is surprising because of where I am from, but this is what drew me to this recipe.

It is worth trying if you want to try a different style of chili. I admit that the corn was my favorite ingredient.

The recipe states that it would be good with tortilla chips or tortillas, but we are avoiding those and cannot verify.

I also added jalapeno because we spice up everything around here. Hardly any recipe is up to our spice level of happiness.

Check out the recipe here.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Cobb Egg Salad



This salad is easy and delightful. It does have a great taste to it. The dressing made for it is interesting, but I liked it. (Side note: my 10 year old nephew did not like it; the salad was a bit too tangy for his taste buds. He also was not used to eating some of the ingredients.)

It probably would go great as a sandwich, which we are trying to avoid at the moment. Also, it would probably be good over a bed of greens. We ate this as a main dish one night and still had leftovers. Eat it up quickly, though, because it will not look nice later because of the avocados.

If you like egg salad, definitely try this fun twist to it.

I also like this recipe because you do not have to scroll through a book to get to it, and the site is not overrun with ads. Speaking of which, let me get through writing about the meals we are doing this week, and I will start working on a special project that does not involve linking you to the recipe website. All the recipes will be typed out right in the blog post and original! Stay tuned.

Monday, July 15, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Taco Stuffed Avocados + recipe to make your own taco seasoning

This recipe was a delight! I loved it. I could eat it weekly, and it is my favorite recipe thus far. I used the hot and spicy taco seasoning, which gave it a good kick. Since then, though, I found a recipe for making your own taco seasoning and have been using it for subsequent recipes. This recipe is also super easy and quick. The trickiest part of this recipe (for me) was to find the optimally ripe avocados on my grocery shopping trip, but that is always an issue with them for me.

10/10 highly recommend 

Find out how to make it here

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Zucchini

This is the first recipe in our explorations that Jared wanted to put in the meal rotation. I did make a mistake on my first zucchini slicing (top of the picture). The recipe called for the stuffing to be placed in between the slices, but it is hard to cut them without going through all the way. If you have chopsticks, which we did, do use them on each side of the zucchini when slicing guide your knife from cutting too far. However, we did like the mistake zucchini best because you got more stuffing. Either do it this way or we thought of making little zucchini boats next time. Add an extra jalapeno for more zest; we will do this next time. The zucchini could use a few extra minutes cooking before you stuff them to make the a tad bit softer. You can find this recipe here.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Ginger Sesame Chicken

I was intrigued by this recipe because it sounded like Chinese food, and I really like Chinese food.

There are some choices in this recipe. We used soy sauce and honey.

They say it goes well with cauliflower. I agree.

We made cauliflower rice for the first time for this one.

This recipe was middle of the road - nothing to write home about (maybe my expectations are too high as they often are in life) but also not bad. It was fine.

Because there are so many new recipes I want to try and a special cookbook I want to work my way through, I am not putting this one in the rotation at the moment. However, if you think you like the flavors here, go for it. It is super easy to prepare and takes very little time.

I do recommend the cauliflower rice because otherwise it will be too soupy.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: Fire Roasted Shrimp Tacos (Lettuce Wraps)

So this is how we went through a head of lettuce in a week.

Pretty much we made everything into a lettuce wrap.

My inspiration was the chicken lettuce wraps at P.F. Changs. We did not quite get there (not even close) with the "crack chicken." Maybe that is why I was disappointed. I set the bar too high in my mind.

But we like shrimp.

The title was enticing.

Crock pot meals are nice, but this one you have to time carefully since it is only a three hour one if you have work that day.

Note: You can make this recipe both keto or paleo friendly.

I used multi colored peppers because I had them and made them more rainbow colored because I feel better about eating the rainbow and it not being the Skittle rainbow.

I skipped the cilantro because it is not my favorite flavor.

The extra toppings make it better - jalapeños especially.

I used some habanero salsa that we had on hand to give it a little kick. That's one way to experiment with the heat level with this.

And we did not use the tortilla, just lettuce.

I actually liked it better without the lettuce and just ate the leftover shrimp the rest of the week.

Make sure you drain your tomatoes well or it will be soupy.

This recipe was alright. It was not the best or worst shrimp taco I have ever had, but out of the week's explorations, it was my personal favorite. I also really like shrimp.

If you want to try it, the recipe is here. You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to it.

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Low Carb Chronicles: "Crack" Chicken


With a name like "Crack Chicken," it makes you wonder how this stuff could taste. The website claims that you cannot stop eating it. I was intrigued.

I was looking for low carb recipes and needed something I could do in a crock pot because life is still chaotic and not unpacked.

One mistake I made with this was that I was using a bag of chicken that was in the freezer and did not clearly have the serving size for the chicken breasts. Had I found the kitchen scale that I later found in the kitchen, I would have used that. So I estimated the ounces in the chicken breast and messed up. I ended up having too much meat in the pot I later realized, which altered the taste.

Probably because of the meat mishap, I found this bland and definitely had no problem stopping eating it.

We used lettuce for wraps. Keep following and you will see how we went through a head of lettuce in a week as I chronicle these low carb recipes.

I would try it again with the correct chicken ratio. Jared liked the extra meat, but more flavor would have been appreciated. We doctored it up with more seasoning, and I later added relish to it to make it more like a chicken salad for later lunch renderings. It also is much better with jalapeno slices added to it for a kick.

It was not my favorite low carb recipe, but it does deserve a second chance since I messed up the meat ratio.

Try it for yourself and see if you think it deserves its name.  Let me know what you think. Recipe is below.

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a26845155/keto-crack-chicken-recipe/

Monday, July 8, 2019

A Crawfish Conundrum: Is It Us Or Them?





I love crawfish – a lot. It ranks up there in my top five favorite foods. I am always down for a pile of them except this one time recently.

I won’t reveal where I was because I do not want to bash this restaurant, but let’s just say they offered 10% off for a favorable Yelp review, and the discount was not worth it. It takes a lot for me to pass up a chance to coupon, but my word is worth more than that.

They put the crawfish in a bag with the seasoning and shook it. I, and my husband, have only eaten crawfish that is boiled with the seasoning.

This, on the other hand, had all the seasoning on the outside of the shell. You had to lick the crawfish to get any seasoning. We also asked for the maximum spicy level, and it still was not very hot.

And there was butter. So much butter. Yeah, sure lobster and butter go well, but crawfish? Even sucking the crawfish head offered no flavor.

I felt nauseous. I could not finish them and ended up peeling them in hopes that they could be used for another dish later. In the end, the dog ate these nasty crawfish because I do not like to waste food. And the dog eats pretty much anything.

I thought it was a fluke.

Then the same thing happened in a new seafood restaurant that I wanted to try out in Columbia. This time I told them to leave the butter far away.

Hmm, this is interesting. I have never experienced this at all, and I have eaten a lot of crawfish. Now I am getting multiple experiences of this shaking of the seasoning thing. What is happening?

The third time I experienced this was at a place that sounded promising because of its name. Jared and I preemptively asked how the crawfish were made because of what had happened recently. We tried ½  a pound just to check them out.

The seasoning was still mostly on the outside of the crawfish.

Three times in a row is too much to discount as a fluke so I am asking – is it us or them?

How do you season your crawfish? Do you put the seasoning in when you boil them or do this shake in a bag thing?